In this year's #nanowrimo story (which I sadly had to abandon), a virus is spread from handset to handset over inaudible sound because they've got always-on microphones. When I started writing, I wasn't sure how plausible this was going to be, but now I see that a bunch of phones - the Moto X, for example - actually do have always-on microphones waiting for voice commands. Which means that my out-there plot about phones as stealth listening devices - and the potential to hack the surveillance state by subverting that information channel - isn't so far-fetched after all. I might go back and write it properly.

I also plan on using Poetica to work with editors to refine my text as I go on (it's by far the best online service that does this). Right now, though, I'm in shitty first draft mode.

My web server also regularly syncs with the GitHub repository, so I know that if I commit a text change, it'll be reflected publicly online. For the public version, I decided it would be nice to include an HTML snippet at the top of each chapter. Mostly, for now, this includes embeddable music from around the web, but I also plan to include animated GIFs, Javascript-enhanced illustrations and a bunch of other stuff. I built a very simple reader script that takes the text files, formats them appropriately, and then injects the equivalent chapter-number.html file at the top. Keeping the HTML and the text separate will make it easier for me to keep track of word count as the project grows.